The EU crashes Microsoft’s party

Seeing as we were so busy at the Microsoft launch in Los Angeles last week, I didn’t get to post about the $1.35 billion fine the EU levied against Microsoft in their ongoing dispute. As Michael Arrington noted at TechCrunch, Microsoft has paid several times that amount in the US in recent years to settle antitrust cases. Regardless, the timing of the EU announcement seemed somewhat cynical given it was also the day of Microsoft’s largest ever product launch.

According to the New York Times, the issue that led the EU to impose the fine was a lack of ‘reasonable royalty pricing’ from Microsoft. This is ironic since we announced our licensing agreement with Microsoft last week and I’m intimately familiar with the royalty terms on offer. Certainly the terms Microsoft has been offering companies since the EU decision in October 2007 are extremely reasonable. Given Microsoft’s new open protocol documentation and their patent pledge for open source developers, what’s not to like?

I haven’t seen any pundits or commentators in the US defending the EU decision. If they are, what are their substantive points?